Kyiv architecture studio Bogdanova Bureau has vowed to make its office “even more beautiful than before” after it was damaged in a Russian missile attack.
Staff at Bogdanova Bureau arrived at the office on Monday to find the windows blasted into the room and debris and broken glass scattered across the floor.
Windows were smashed into the room by the blast
Russian forces had fired a barrage of missiles into the Ukrainian capital and other cities early that morning, killing 19 people and injuring many more.
None of Bogdanova Bureau’s employees were harmed, though some of their possessions were destroyed, the studio told Dezeen. By Tuesday, the team had cleaned up the office and returned to work in the studio.
The team cleaned up the office and returned to work the following day
“In some time we will repair all that is broken and make our place even more beautiful than before,” said studio spokesperson Nadia Sheikina. “As designers, we know how to do it.”
“As well, we are going to rebuild all the destroyed cities and villages, all the schools, homes and ambulatories that were ruined in Ukraine,” she continued. “We already had started working on it.”
Broken glass and debris was scattered through the office
“We were scared on February 24 when the war started, now we are not,” she added. “We know that the mean enemy wants to invade our land and appropriate our culture, but it will never happen.”
Bogdanova Bureau only recently refurbished its office, completing the project five months before the Russian invasion began.
The office, pictured before the blast, was refurbished five months before the war began. Photo by Yevhenii Avramenko
The office is in the heart of Kyiv next to Shevchenko Park, and is surrounded by a university, libraries, museums, and a cultural centre, as well as apartments and office buildings.
A missile struck the middle of the park close to a children’s playground, with the blast wave destroying windows across the building housing the studio’s office.
The missile struck a park outside the office building next to a playground
The bombardment of central Kyiv was part of a series of attacks launched in retaliation after a key bridge linking Russia to the annexed region of Crimea was heavily damaged by an explosion.
In April, Bogdanova Bureau spoke to Dezeen for a piece about how Ukrainian design and architecture studios were dealing with the war.
At the time, its founder Olga Bogdanova urged international clients to trust Ukrainian studios to deliver despite the turmoil of the conflict.
“We thank the international society and especially the international design community for all their support and all their attention,” Sheikina said this week.
Windows of the building were left damaged
“But after eight months of the war, we feel that some of you got used to the war. Please do not be! It is understandable, no one can be stressed for such a long time and everyone deserves to experience their own life and focus on some normal things around them,” she continued.
“We ask you not to get used to war and pay your precise attention to Ukrainian designers, architects, and artists. Please raise your voice and stand with Ukraine. It can make things different!”
The photography is by Yulia Bevzenko unless otherwise stated.
Two vacant ground-floor rooms and an adjoining greenhouse were knocked together and lined with bookshelves to form this private library, designed by Atelier Tao+C for a venture capital firm in Shanghai.
Set in a converted 1980s house, which is home to the offices of VC fund Whales Capital, the reading room can accommodate up to 12 people and is shared between the company’s employees and the owner’s friends.
Atelier Tao+C has created a reading room for Whales Capital
All of the rooms are enclosed by immovable, load-bearing walls, which local practice Atelier Tao+C had to integrate into the design while creating the impression of being in one continuous 76-square-metre space.
To this effect, the original doors and windows were removed and three openings – measuring between two and three metres wide – were created to connect the rooms.
The space is lined with wooden bookshelves
The remaining wall sections are hidden from view by new architectural elements including a set of semi-circular wooden bookshelves, which run through the two ground-floor rooms to form a pair of small, quiet reading nooks.
The structural walls connecting these rooms to the old glasshouse were wrapped in creamy white travertine to create a kind of “sculptural volume”, Atelier Tao+C explained.
Skylights funnel natural light into the interior
As a result, the studio says the walls and structural columns are “dissolved” into the space to create the feeling of a more open-plan interior.
In the old greenhouse, a timber structure was inserted into the building’s glass shell, with bookshelves integrated into its wooden beams and columns to create a seamless design.
This structure also forms a wooden ceiling inside the glasshouse, with strategically placed round and square skylights to temper the bright daylight from outside and create a more pleasant reading environment.
Spread across the interior are four different seating areas: a small study table for solo work, a shared meeting table, a reading booth for one person and a sofa seat where multiple people can talk and relax.
White travertine was used to obscure the building’s original brick walls
A Private Reading Room has been shortlisted in the small interiors category of the 2022 Dezeen Awards.
Atelier Tao+C, which is run by designers Chunyan Cai and Tao Liu, is also shortlisted for emerging interior design studio this year, alongside Sydney firm Alexander & Co, Barcelona-based Raúl Sánchez Architects and London practice House of Grey.
Used books are displayed in supermarket-style crates at the Deja Vu Recycle Store in Shanghai, which local studio Offhand Practice has designed to counter the “shabby” image associated with second-hand shops.
The store, which also carries pre-owned fashion, is located on the first and second floor of a three-storey building on Shanghai’s buzzy Anfu Road.
The Deja Vu Recycle Store is located in Shanghai’s Anfu Road
On the interior, Chinese architecture studio Offhand Practice hoped to create a relaxed shopping environment despite the large number of goods on offer, which includes more than 2,000 pieces of clothing.
With this aim, the studio set out to mimic the experience of going to a greengrocer by displaying clothes and books on shelves typically used to hold fruits and vegetables, while giving all products equal prominence regardless of price.
A long gallery-like corridor leads to the staircase for the first floor
“Picking up books in the way of picking up vegetables and fruits gives a feeling of enriching the spiritual basket,” Offhand Practice explained.
On the ground floor, the studio recessed the building’s entrance and framed it in cream-coloured mosaic tiles to create a small shelter while making the towering facade feel more welcoming.
Second-hand books are displayed in supermarket-style crates
One of the main challenges for the studio was to encourage passersby to walk through the building’s ground floor – consisting of a long corridor bookended with space for mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) equipment– and climb the stairs to reach the Deja Vu Recycle Store.
This was achieved by turning the corridor into a kind of gallery, showcasing the process of refurbishing second-hand goods.
“Taking advantage of the narrowness, we identified spatial depth through layers of opening,” the studio explained.
Books are displayed on the building’s first floor and clothing on the second. Both levels have an open-plan layout with circulation routes defined by shelving and clothes rails.
Mosaic tiles made from stone off-cuts were used to form decorative wainscoting in the same creamy beige colour as the facade, which channels 1970s Shanghai interiors.
Contrasting green tiles were used to frame the generous window openings revealed during the building’s renovation, and to form integrated window seats.
Green mosaic tiles were used to frame the building’s windows
Natural pine was used to form the cashier counter, shelves and book crates to add a sense of warmth to the interior.
Offhand Practice said it designed the store to break with negative preconceptions around second-hand stores being “dull, disorganised and piled with shabby objects”.
“Deja Vu Recycle Store breaks the stereotypical image of a second-hand store and erases the ritualistic impression of a traditional bookstore full of full-height bookshelves,” the studio said.
The tiles were also used to emphasise arches and other architectural details
The store was recently been shortlisted for large retail interior of the year at the 2022 Dezeen Awards.
Other projects in the running include a surrealist pop-up shop designed by Random Studio for fashion brand Jacquemus and a concept store that Schemata Architects has created for an outdoor brand in South Korea.
Production designer Kate Byron used vintage “treasures” and referenced key modernist architecture to create the set of psychological thriller Don’t Worry Darling, which was shot in California’s Palm Springs.
Byron drew on the architecture and interior style of the many modernist buildings that dominate the landscape in the desert city to create Victory – a fictional, utopian 1950s-style society where the film takes place.
Katie Byron referenced modernist architecture for the film
“We wanted to build a playful and debaucherous take on the 1950s, when there was this illustrious progressive, mid-century modern movement happening,” Byron told Dezeen.
“The world of Victory is supposed to be alluring, it’s supposed to be beautiful and sultry and sumptuous and opulent.”
It was shot in Palm Springs, a Californian city famous for its modernist architecture
Directed by actor and director Olivia Wilde, Don’t Worry Darling follows fiery couple Alice and Jack – played by British actor Florence Pugh and musician and actor Harry Styles – as they go from living in an idealistic paradise to a troubled world fraught with secrets, control and manipulation.
The characters move across a quintessential Palm Springs backdrop of low-slung buildings with clean lines by architects including Richard Neutra, Harold Bissner Junior and Albert Frey.
Kaufmann House was one of the filming locations
Several scenes, such as a cocktail party hosted by the leader of Victory which took place in Neutra’s Kaufmann House, were shot in real modernist buildings, while the home of protagonists Alice and Jack was built in a Los Angeles studio.
“We’re really lucky in California to have access to this architecture and in my history of being an architecture student and a production designer, I’ve gotten to visit a lot of these houses in person,” Byron said.
“I was interested in Neutra, but also Frey was a huge inspiration for us because of that playful wholesomeness that he embodied,” she said.
Alice and Jack’s house is filled with locally sourced props
Byron, who studied architecture at University of California, Berkeley, threaded more subtle modernist details into the interiors of Don’t Worry Darling through devices such as colour.
“A colour we used quite a bit was Frey’s favourite colour – this Frey blue – which is like a robin’s-egg blue that he puts in all of his buildings,” explained Byron.
“There’s also a colour that Kaufman House has quite a bit of; Neutra put this really, really, really dark brown that almost feels black, but it has this warmth to it,” she continued. “We weaved that throughout the film as well.”
Byron used lots of glass and mirrors throughout the set
Byron sourced vintage products from shops and prop houses in LA for Alice and Jack’s home, which recalls “cookie-cutter” houses – rows of identical homes found in idyllic depictions of 1950s suburbia.
Much of the furniture seen was built from scratch, in part because the film was shot during the autumn of 2020 when many vendors were unavailable or had long lead times as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
“When you’re in Palm Springs, they just have these antique stores and even in thrift stores and Facebook marketplace you can find really special things,” the designer recalled.
“That’s also one of the most amazing things about Los Angeles – there are infinite prop houses here so we shopped quite a bit at all the local prop houses,” she continued.
“The television in Alice and Jack’s house is from this vendor called RC Vintage, which is just like a treasure trove place of antique electronics.”
Much of the furniture was made from scratch
Other smaller references were embedded into Byron’s material choices, primarily glass, stone and brick.
Meanwhile, the designer paid homage to Neutra’s storage cabinets, which the production team filled with items such as business cards, cleaning supplies and photographs of Alice and Jack to make the set feel more real for the actors.
“Keeping with Neutra as our design inspiration, the house is designed with a lot of storage in mind – we wanted all of this stuff to be cleanly kept behind doors,” Byron said.
The desert setting is designed to look like a utopia
Byron hoped that by incorporating playful elements throughout the set she could “subvert” the sense of normalcy in Victory and play with the audience’s expectations of a thriller.
“The thriller follows a formula often, and I thought it could be really great to just subvert that,” she said.
“I think the level of play helps viewers feel like they want to be there and if it wasn’t for the playful aesthetic, I think we would be expecting something to go wrong,” she added.
Don’t Worry Darling is not the only film that draws on a key architectural movement to inform its set. Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs film sets were heavily informed by metabolist architecture, while Black Panther’s “voluptuous” sets recalled works by architect Zaha Hadid.
Our latest lookbook rounds up 10 living spaces that take tiling from practical to decorative, applying it to everything from bars and fireplaces to entire statement walls.
Tiles in the modern home are often consigned to the bathroom or kitchen, where their durable finish can protect walls from water damage.
But a growing cohort of designers are using the surfacing much like they would rugs or wallpapers, as a means of bringing colours and patterns into living spaces.
Whether made from ceramic, stone or concrete, this can help to imbue an otherwise cosy interior with a much-needed sense of depth and dimension.
This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring maximalist interiors, kitchens with polished granite surfaces and brutalist interiors with a surprisingly welcoming feel.
Photo is by Prue Ruscoe
Dream Weaver penthouse, Australia, by YSG
Spanish tapas bars informed the design of this penthouse in Sydney, which belongs to a couple of empty nesters.
In the open-plan living space, this reference was translated into an entire wall of glossy off-white tiles, providing the backdrop for a custom bar trolley made from white ash and blue granite.
Find out more about Dream Weaver penthouse ›
Photo is by German Sáiz
Conde Duque apartment, Spain, by Sierra + De La Higuera
Vibrantly glazed tiles help to define the different zones in this apartment in Madrid, with green used in the kitchen, red and blue in the bathrooms and yellow in the living areas.
The traditional Moroccan zellige tiles are characterised by their tonal and textural variations, with imperfect surfaces that are moulded by hand.
Find out more about Conde Duque ›
Photo is by Pion Studio
Puro Hotel Kraków, Poland, by Paradowski Studio
Polish practice Paradowski Studio mixed and matched different kinds of tiling throughout this lounge, covering everything from the floor to the columns to an entire wall, designed by artist Tomasz Opaliński based on the modernist mosaics of the 1970s.
To soften up these hard, glossy surfaces and add a sense of warmth, the studio added plenty of textiles plus a stained oak bas-relief, which a couple of doors.
Find out more about Puro Hotel Kraków ›
Photo is by Joana França
São Paulo apartment, Brazil, by Casulo
A bar clad in glossy green tiles forms the centrepiece of this living room, contrasted against the matt black slate on the floor.
Brazilian studio Casulo repeated this same material palette in the bathroom and kitchen of the São Paulo apartment, which the owners bought at a closed-door auction without seeing its interior.
Find out more about São Paulo apartment ›
Photo is by José Hevia
Yurikago House, Spain, by Mas-aqui
Hydraulic tiling helps to create a sense of continuity across the various different floors and half-levels of this apartment, designed by architecture studio Mas-aqui.
The natural tonal variations of the reddish-brown ceramics help to create a sense of depth and texture despite using only one material.
Find out more about Yurikago House ›
Photo is by Benoit Linero
Hotel Les Deux Gares, France, by Luke Edward Hall
Chevron marble floors, striped pink-satin armchairs and chintzy duck-egg blue wallpaper create a riotous clash of patterns and colours in this lounge by British designer Luke Edward Hall.
“I really wanted this space to feel above all joyful and welcoming and alive, classic but a little bonkers at the same time,” he explained.
Find out more about Hotel Les Deux Gares ›Photo is by José Hevia
Reforma de una Vivienda en Ensanche, Spain, by Arquitectura-G
Barcelona practice Arquitectura-G removed a series of dividing walls from this apartment to let more light into the plan and relied on changing levels and flooring to denote different areas.
Here, the transition from the hallway to the lounge is signified by a zig-zagging junction between the gridded grey tiling and the neutral-toned carpet, which is made from coarse sisal plant fibres.
Find out more about Reforma de una Vivienda en Ensanche ›
Photo is by Adrià Goula
Passeig de Grácia 97, Spain, by Jeanne Schultz
A pink stone fireplace with chequered tiling served as the starting point for the renovation of this old Barcelona apartment, with doors, window frames and ceiling mouldings throughout the home painted in a matching shade of green.
Designer Jeanne Schultz also introduced minimal yet characterful modern furnishings to keep the focus on the building’s period features, which also include traditional Catalan vault ceilings and wooden parquet flooring.
Find out more about Passeig de Grácia 97 ›
Photo is by Yiannis Hadjiaslanis
Ilioupoli apartment, Greece, by Point Supreme
Originally popular in the 1970s, when they were used to cover verandas and porticos in holiday homes throughout Greece, these glazed terracotta tiles were salvaged from storage so they could be used to cover the floor of a one-bedroom home in Athens.
Formerly a semi-basement storage space, the apartment is located at the bottom of a typical Athenian polykatoikia – a concrete residential block with tiered balconies.
Find out more about Ilioupoli apartment ›
Photo is by Eugeni Pons
Casa AB, Spain, by Built Architecture
When Built Architecture renovated this 19th-century Barcelona apartment, the Spanish practice retained the traditional mosaic flooring laid throughout most of its rooms, including the hallway, bedroom, living and dining room.
The spaces between the tiling were filled with oak floorboards to match the custom oak cabinetry the studio installed to run longways through the apartment like a spine, dividing up the private and communal areas.
Find out more about Casa AB ›
This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring maximalist interiors, kitchens with polished granite surfaces and surprisingly welcoming brutalist interiors.
A home in Williamsburg with a bathroom that saw its original tin-panelled ceiling restored and intricate 19th-century plasterwork set within a modern apartment feature in this lookbook, which showcases decorative and ornate ceilings.
Mouldings are decorative architectural elements that are used as focal elements in interior spaces, contouring the corners of ceilings and light fixtures in the form of ceiling roses, cornices, architraves and coving.
These elements typically have a highly decorative and ornate finish incorporating seamless patterns, created through reliefs and recesses across their surfaces.
Mouldings and ornate plasterworks are typically associated with the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian eras and were drawn from classicism and ancient Greek and Egyptian architecture.
The architectural elements were often constructed from plaster and timber, however the 20th century saw people look to alternative materials to obtain more durable and cost-effective finishes.
This is the latest in our lookbook series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring deliberately unfinished interiors, maximalist interiors and homes with walk-in wardrobes.
Stockholm Apartment, Sweden, by Note Design Studio
Swedish design firm Note Design Studio transformed this Stockholm office into a home adding shades of yellow, green and pink across its walls and mouldings and window frames.
Rooms of the home were painted entirely in single colours adding pastel hues to its 19th-century features.
Find out more about Stockholm Apartment ›
Photo is by White Arrow
Historic Schoolhouse, US, by White Arrow
Brooklyn-based interior design studio White Arrow’s founders, Keren and Thomas Richter transformed this landmarked building in Williamsburg into a bright and airy home while restoring some of its original features.
In one of the home’s bathrooms, the interior design duo tracked down its original decorative tin ceiling tiles and reinstated them across the vanity area. Tin ceiling tiles are an American innovation and were created as a low-cost and more durable alternative to ornate plasterwork.
Find out more about Historic Schoolhouse ›
Bakers House, Sweden, by Färg & Blanche
This residence, which has belonged to the family of Färg & Blanche co-founder Emma Marga Blanche for four generations, features a traditional and extravagantly ornate interior. The home formerly contained a traditional Swedish crispbread bakery at the rear of the building and is now mainly used to host events.
Intricately detailed furniture, such as carved-wood trimmed sofas and gilded photo frames complement the home’s decorative ceiling mouldings and ornamentation. In each room, the ceiling details are painted bold colours and incorporate frescoes-like paintings.
Find out more about Bakers House ›
Photography is by Norbert Tukaj
Young family house, Lithuania, by ŠA Atelier
Lithuanian architecture studio ŠA Atelier renovated the interior of this formerly dilapidated 19th-century apartment in Vilnius, Lithuania. Set within a townhouse built in 1862, the apartment has a minimal finish with some of its remaining original features restored as focal points throughout.
Expanses of plasterwork mouldings and ceiling roses stretch across the ceilings in the home while parquet wood flooring boasts a neutral, light tone.
Find out more about Young family house ›
Photo is by Adrià Goula
Passeig de Grácia, Spain, by Jeanne Schultz Design Studio
Ornamental details and finishes were added to the renovation of this apartment on Barcelona’s Passeig de Grácia.
US design firm Jeanne Schultz Design Studio incorporated and re-energised the home’s period and original features. In the main living space, it painted the ceiling’s stepped coving, that runs through the interior of the home, a shade of green which was also applied to the doors, window frames and skirting of the room.
Find out more about Passeig de Grácia ›
Photo is by David Foessel
Napoléon apartment, France, Freaks
French studio Freaks renovated this apartment in Paris. It retained period mouldings and architectural features throughout but added modern touches including fluorescent lighting and freestanding angular volumes.
“One of the main interventions consisted of opening the new kitchen towards the dining room, while taking charge to use a contemporary architectural language,” said the studio.
Photography is by Salem Mostefaoui
Wood Ribbon apartment, France, by Toledano + Architects
Set above a ribbon-like plywood wall and contrasting against the apartment’s contemporary decor, ornate plasterwork, which has largely remained untouched since the 19th century, subtly defines and zones this apartment.
Where French architecture studio Toledano + Architects wanted the home to feel more contemporary, it installed a false, polycarbonate ceiling over its original decorative ceilings.
Find out more about Wood Ribbon apartment ›
Photo is by Alex Lesage
Montreal Home, Canada, by Vives St-Laurent
Canadian interior design studio Vives St-Laurent renovated and remodelled a family home in Montreal to better highlight its existing architectural elements. The studio looked to incorporate as much of the home’s original 20th-century characteristics including its plaster mouldings.
In the home’s open-plan kitchen and diner, coving informally zones the dining room from the kitchen while a ceiling rose anchors a pendant light above a light wood dining table and four Marcel Breuer Cesca chairs.
Find out more about Montreal Home ›
Carrer Avinyo 34, Spain, by David Kohn Architects
British architecture studio David Kohn Architects renovated this Barcelona apartment to better reveal and highlight its large windows, high ceilings and ornate mouldings.
Above the dining space, cornices bound the edges of the room while coffered ceilings stretch across the living areas. Ceiling roses throughout the home became focal points across the ceilings without light fixtures fitted to them.
Find out more about Carrer Avinyo 34 ›
Photo is by Mariela Apollonio
Casa Cas 8, Spain, by DG Arquitecto
Panel moulding and corbels protrude from the ceilings at Casa Cas 8 in Valencia, Spain, which was created by Valencia-based architecture studio DG Arquitecto. The 1920s penthouse aims to celebrate its original features including its mosaic floors, mouldings and arched doorways.
“Small changes in the distribution, very limited by the initial idea of completely maintaining the original floor of the house and the ceilings with mouldings, helped us to transform the existing spaces,” said DG Arquitecto.
Find out more about Casa Cas 8 ›
Find out more about Napoléon apartment ›
This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring deliberately unfinished interiors, maximalist interiors and homes with walk-in wardrobes.
Dutch studio AMO has used pillows to form the display stands and line the walls in this tactile womenswear boutique by fashion brand Jacquemus in Paris, France.
The 60-square-metre shop, set in the department store Galeries Lafayette Haussmann, was designed to feel like a bedroom according to AMO, which is the research and design arm of architecture firm OMA.
AMO has lined a Jacquemus store with large cream-coloured pillows
“The location of the shop within the Galleries Lafayette – without windows or daylight – led to the idea of creating a bedroom-like environment: a room entirely made of pillows,” said OMA partner Ellen van Loon.
“It is a cocooning and relaxed atmosphere, inviting customers to lounge and browse for as long as they want,” she told Dezeen.
The store is designed to feel like a bedroom
The linen pillows were designed to reference the textiles of Provence, where Jacquemus founder Simon Porte Jacquemus grew up.
“We explored a material palette that aims to capture the atmosphere of Provence,” said OMA architect Giulio Margheri.
“The fabric of the pillows is a reference to the linens of the South of France,” he told Dezeen.
Linen pillows reference the textiles of Provence
AMO also added a stack of pillows to serve as a seating area for shoppers, as well as a spot to showcase Jacquemus’ signature tiny bags.
The studio completed the store’s easy-going atmosphere with the help of a stripped-back scheme, including cream-coloured carpet, soft lighting and clothing rails in a milky beige hue.
AMO previously designed another store for Jacquemus inside the London department store Selfridges. Much like the brand’s Paris outpost, the shop was wrapped entirely in a single material – clay.
“The design of the Jacquemus boutiques in London and Paris began with the idea of testing the limits of working with a single material,” Van Loon explained.
“Instead of working on the design first and deciding on the materials afterwards, we let the materials dictate their presence in the space.”
Changing rooms are coloured in the same creamy hue
The Jacquemus store is one of many retail interiors AMO has designed in Paris.
Among them is a pop-up shop by Tiffany & Co that showcases an array of jewellery pieces and a flagship store for clothing brand Off-White that features abstract interpretations of Parisian courtyards and flea markets.
Project credits Partner: Ellen van Loon Architect: Giulio Margheri Team: Valerio Di Festa, Camille Filbien and Mattia Locci
Sea green floors and skirting tiles are contrasted against the all-red interior of this bar in Warsaw, Poland, which local studio Noke Architects has designed to recall the high waters of Venice.
Billed as Poland’s first cicchetti bar – an Italian bar selling drinks alongside small plates of food – Va Bene Cicchetti is located in a huge Socialist Realist housing estate from the 1950s called the Marszałkowska Housing District.
Va Bene Cicchetti is a bar in Warsaw
Customers enter the bar via an arched doorway lined with antique mirrors. Inside, they are met by a huge red travertine counter with a large drinks cooler, which is hollowed out of the stone and filled with ice and bottles of prosecco.
Most of the interior is rendered in warm hues of red and gold in a nod to the colours of the Venetian flag.
But the floor, and everything up to about 20 centimetres in height, is finished in sea green to suggest the high waters of the Veneto region, locally known as acqua alta.
Its interior was informed by Venice’s floodwaters
Several times a year, when the tide in the Adriatic Sea rises, these floodwaters will cover streets and piazzas in Venice in a layer of water.
To recreate this “flood effect” inside the interior of Va Bene Cicchetti, Noke Architects coloured the floors and skirting tiles, as well as the base of table legs, chairs and plinths in a watery shade of turquoise.
Tables resemble Venice’s red-and-white striped mooring poles
“We wanted the place to be unambiguously associated with Venice but we also wanted for this reference to be fresh and unique,” said Piotr Maciaszek, who co-founded Noke Architects alongside Aleksandra Hyz and Karol Pasternak.
“We took inspiration from the colours of the Venetian flag, which dominate all finishings, and incorporated the acqua alta motif in the interior as an element of surprise.”
Turquoise skirting tiles run along the perimeter of the room
The scheme is completed with glass lamps that resemble rippling water and bespoke furniture pieces including tables that pay homage to the red-and-white striped mooring posts found in Venice’s canals.
Taking over an entire wall of the bar is an intricate mosaic made from reclaimed materials including glass panes from the Murano glass factory in Venice and fragments of wine bottles from Va Bene Cicchetti’s sister restaurant Va Bene.
The mural depicts the bar’s owners and their dog Koko enjoying wine and food at a table in Venice.
“Veneto is where the famous Murano glass and antique mirrors are manufactured,” Maciaszek explained.
“The region is famous for its ceramics and wine. We came up with the idea to use mini pieces of Venice as the building blocks of our artwork. Mosaic was the perfect solution for this.”
The bar is centred on a red travertine counter
The bar’s basement level is completely saturated in the same greeny-blue hue as the floors upstairs to create the impression of being underwater.
Bathrooms, meanwhile, are finished in black and white stripes and topped with a red ceiling in a reference to the uniforms worn by Venetian gondoliers.
An intricate mosaic covers an entire wall of the bar
Polish illustrator and graphic designer Ola Niepsuj was responsible for creating the bar’s visual identity, which depicts the Lion of Saint Mark – a winged lion that represents the patron saint of Venice and is found on buildings across the city.
At Va Bene Cicchetti, this motif can be found in the form of door handles and the neon light above the entrance.
The bar’s basement level is covered in sea green tiles
Elsewhere in Poland, local practice Paradowski Studio recently channelled the glamour of Kraków’s interwar cafes and the clean functionalism of its mid-century modern cinemas for a hotel renovation.
The Puro Stare Miasto hotel is located next to Kraków’s historic old town and spans 138 rooms alongside an extensive open-plan reception, lobby space and restaurant.
Spanish architecture studio Sierra + De La Higuera has used traditional Moroccan zellige tiles to define the different spaces in this open-plan apartment in Madrid.
Housed in a 1940s building in the city’s bohemian Conde Duque neighbourhood, the apartment belongs to a well-travelled couple that wanted to stamp its Mexican and Galician heritage onto the interior.
Colourful tiling features throughout the Conde Duque apartment
“Our clients wanted to bring part of their origins to Madrid,” Sierra + De La Higuera told Dezeen. “This project is the outcome of a quest to find colour in Madrid, a characteristic marked by the owners’ journeys and origins.”
The studio was commissioned to carry out a complete refurbishment of the apartment, which included totally changing its layout.
The apartment is housed in a 1940s building in Madrid
The original plan consisted of a series of rooms laid out along a long windowless hallway. Sierra + De La Higuera removed as many walls as possible to create an open-plan kitchen, dining and living space.
“Historically in Madrid, houses had a lot of rooms and partitions,” the studio told Dezeen.
“But nowadays, we like to live on a more open-plan basis. The main aim of the new layout was to open spaces, eliminate corridors and hallways, and to gain as much natural light as possible.”
A wood-panelled entrance hall separates the living and dining spaces
Two bedrooms – one with a walk-in wardrobe and both with adjoining bathrooms – are located at the north end of the apartment while a bright sitting room wrapped by south-facing terraces sits at the opposite end.
Throughout the apartment, natural timber, terracotta tiles and white walls were used as foils to the zellige tiling, which is distinguished by its imperfect hand-moulded surfaces.
Emerald green zellige tiles distinguish the kitchen
The wood-panelled entrance hall with its arched doorways was conceived as a buffer between two different zones. On the one side is the Mexico-influenced kitchen and dining area finished with emerald green tiles.
And on the other side are the living room and the terraces with their bold yellow colour scheme, which were informed by the couple’s travels to Singapore.
“We focused on vivid colours: bright yellows, greens, blues and reds, paired with materials like tiles, ceramics and fine wood,” explained Sierra + De La Higuera.
In the sitting room and the two bathrooms – finished in red and blue respectively – the tiles were used to create decorative striped skirting that frames the different zones.
In some areas, the colours of the tiles are applied to other furnishings to create a cohesive feel, with the green upholstery in the living room echoing the glazed green tiles in the kitchen.
Yellow was applied liberally throughout the terraces and in the living room
A large bookshelf that runs around the kitchen, dining and living room area was custom designed for the space by Sierra + De La Higuera.
“This element is very important to the clients, as it holds all the objects they have collected on each of their journeys in addition to all their books,” the studio explained.
Tiles were also used to create decorative striped skirting in the bathrooms
In the bedroom, the architects designed custom cabinetry and specified a cloud-grey carpet to create a calm and cosy ambience, which is intended to evoke Galicia.
Other projects that use tiles to delineate rooms include a Barcelona bed and breakfast by Nook Architects that features vibrant blue tiles and cobalt-blue paintwork.
The visual language of scientific laboratories informed the look of this blue-lit concept store in Monaco, which London firm Universal Design Studio has devised for skincare brand Biotherm.
Set inside Monaco’s historic Oceanographic Institute, Blue Beauty Lab is where buyers and other industry insiders can come to expand their knowledge of the science underpinning Biotherm‘s skincare line.
Visitors enter the Blue Beauty Lab via a circular doorway
Although the 30-square-metre concept store showcases a selection of the brand’s products, none of them are for sale. Instead, visitors can fully immerse themselves in the experience of being in the “lab”.
“Brands are increasingly looking to physical presence for means above and beyond selling products,” explained Satoshi Isono, creative director at Universal Design Studio.
“They’re harnessing spaces to storytell their core brand messaging in unique ways and ultimately connect with customers in a more impactful way.”
The first section of the store is set up like a science lab
As the outer walls of Blue Beauty Lab back onto water tanks harbouring various aquatic creatures, Universal Design Studio had to keep architectural interventions to a minimum. As a result, the store’s floor plan is fairly simple.
To enter, visitors walk through a circular doorway and a short mirrored tunnel. The interior is washed in sea-blue light and split into two parts.
Steel worktops and petri dishes add to the lab-like feel of the space
The first is an area reminiscent of a research lab that gives an insight into the production process of Life Plankton – an extract containing 35 different nutrients that Biotherm incorporates throughout some of its moisturisers, serums and skin peels.
Stainless steel counters and glass shelving units run down the sides of the space, dotted with science paraphernalia like microscopes, petri dishes, test tubes and measuring flasks.
A small workshop forms the second part of the store, centred by a round table. Directly above is a large ring light emitting a bright white glow that enhances the lab-like feel of the space.
Interactive visuals produced by multimedia design studios Superbien and AC3 Studio are projected on the surrounding walls.
Measuring flasks and test tubes are also displayed on the shelves
The clinical aesthetic of laboratories has also inspired a number of other interiors.
Among them is a bike shop in Copenhagen by local designer Johannes Torpe and a cafe in Tokyo with a white-lacquered steel ceiling grid.
